Menendez says he reimbursed donor for 2 jaunts

FILE - In this Jan. 28, 2013 file photo, Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J. speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington. Menendez's office says he traveled on a plane owned by a Florida physician who is a friend and political donor, but denied that the senator had engaged with prostitutes in the Dominican Republic. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
— AP

FILE - In this Jan. 28, 2013 file photo, Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J. speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington. Menendez's office says he traveled on a plane owned by a Florida physician who is a friend and political donor, but denied that the senator had engaged with prostitutes in the Dominican Republic. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
/ AP

WASHINGTON 
Sen. Robert Menendez's office says he reimbursed a prominent Florida political donor $58,500 on Jan. 4 of this year for the full cost of two of three trips Menendez took on the donor's plane to the Dominican Republic in 2010.

More details about the New Jersey senator's trips emerged as his office said unsubstantiated allegations that the senator engaged in sex with prostitutes in the Dominican Republic are false.

There had been no public disclosure of the two trips until now.

"The senator paid for the two trips out of his personal account and no reporting requirements apply," Menendez spokeswoman Tricia Enright said Wednesday night.

The FBI searched the West Palm Beach, Fla., office of the donor - eye doctor Salomon Melgen - on Tuesday night and early Wednesday, but it was unclear if the raid was related to Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat. In addition the FBI agents, investigators with the U.S. Health and Human Services Department also were seen carting boxes out of the office.

A third trip by Menendez aboard Melgen's plane - a campaign fundraising journey to the donor's residence in the Dominican Republic - took place in May 2010. That trip was reported to the Federal Election Commission as a $5,400 expenditure by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which Menendez chaired. The trip, for fundraising from the community of Americans in the region, took Menendez to Puerto Rico as well as the Dominican Republic, said Menendez's office. The $5,400 was paid to one of Melgen's companies, Vitreo Retinal Consultants.

Menendez categorized the other two trips as personal. The first was Aug. 6-9, 2010, a round trip from South Florida to the Dominican Republic. The second was Sept. 3-6, 2010, from New Jersey to the Dominican Republic and back.

Menendez could have invoked what is known as a "friendship exemption" regarding the two personal trips, which would have required the senator to report the travel to the Senate Ethics Committee as a gift. Instead, Menendez chose to reimburse the full cost of the two trips.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., turned aside questions about Menendez at a news conference Thursday, saying they should be directed to the New Jersey Democrat instead. On Tuesday - before the disclosures about the FBI raid and the trips - he had expressed skepticism about the allegations, telling reporters to consider the source.

White House press secretary Jay Carney declined to answer when asked whether the president still has full faith and confidence in Menendez. "I don't have anything for you on that," Carney told reporters Thursday.

The Daily Caller, a conservative website, reported shortly before the November election that Menendez traveled on Melgen's private plane to the Dominican Republic to engage in sex with prostitutes. Some New Jersey Republicans filed a complaint with the Senate Ethics Committee last fall in the wake of the allegations by The Caller. In response, Menendez's staffers searched records for trips by the senator and found the two additional trips that hadn't been reimbursed.